LINK Conference Program Sessions

Workshops | Keynote Speakers | Breakout Sessions | Optional Q&As

Pre-conference Workshops - Wednesday, September 10th

New this year, you’ll have opportunity to hone your skills with in-depth, pre-conference workshops to help you work smarter.

Workshop 1: How to Demonstrate the ROI of Your Selection Program: A Strategy Workshop
Who should attend: Talent management practitioners with ROI responsibilities.

Are you able to determine the real value of you assessment program? Whether you have data from 100 or 1000 hired employees, there are ways to ‘assess’ your program for ROI. In this strategy session you'll learn best practices to measure the effectiveness and ROI of your assessment program - for all size organizations. Plus you’ll learn techniques for optimizing your current hiring practices and improving productivity.

We will cover:

• How to measure ROI by linking pre-hire decisions with post-hire performance
• Practical tips for demonstrating the value of your selection programs
• How to optimize the predictive power of your assessment program
• How to maximize business outcome through improved hiring

Back to the top

In addition to learning about ROI best practices and strategic approaches, you will take away tactical planning worksheets designed to help you get started on providing business performance answers once you’re back in the real world.

Workshop 2: Becoming a PreVisor "Power User"

Who should attend: Prospects and clients who desire a deeper understanding of the science behind assessments, how to pick the most powerful assessment for their organization, and PreVisor’s online assessment platform.

New to PreVisor, or just looking to expand your understanding of PreVisor products and Best Practices in the field? Here is your chance to become a PreVisor "Power User." Join this informative interactive workshop to learn powerful techniques for hiring smarter and the tools available to help you get there. This in-depth practical workshop is for the new user of PreVisor products or those that want to take full advantage of the best practices we’ve developed over the years. We will show you tips and techniques to take full advantage of all the benefits of your PreVisor solutions and services.

This workshop is broken into three distinct sections, each of which will explore in detail a different PreVisor product group and tips for getting the most out of using them, specifically:

• Part I: Science & PreVisor: Best Practice Recommendations
• Part II: PreVisor Assessments: Picking What's Right for You
• Part III: PreVisor's Platform: "Select2Perform"

Some key takeaways from this session include:

• The significance of job analysis, solution design and validity
• Knowing when to test for specific skills or assess candidates for the particular job
• Staying connected: Information blogs, product updates and tech support
• Harnessing the power of your data: Data warehousing and reporting
• New products and enhancements

Back to the top

Workshop 3: Rolling Out Assessment Programs and Building Business Buy-in
Who should attend: This workshop is valuable both to clients who are relatively new to the PreVisor system and also for long-time users looking to benchmark their programs against these best practices.

The success of an assessment program rollout depends on how well it is designed, implemented and supported. This workshop will share critical success factors associated with devising an overall assessment strategy, implementing assessment programs, and maintaining the program after roll out. We will also focus on how to best configure the PreVisor system around your business processes, effectively communicate and train your users, and share best practices on how to efficiently utilize the system.

Specifically the workshop will cover:

• Defining your assessment program
• Designing a communication and training plan
• Understanding the changes to your recruiting process
• Configuring the PreVisor system to your processes
• Training and rollout of the program
• Demonstrating the value of a program once implemented

Takeaways: Attendees will learn both strategic best practices and tactical tips and tricks that apply to a new or existing assessment program.

With a specialized keynote address each morning you’ll be enlightened by industry experts and leading business gurus with the latest ideas and HR thinking for talent selection, management and motivation.

Thursday Keynote Address: Steve Smith, Author of Egonomics

Smith has spent the past ten years exploring how great leaders use ego differently than everyone else how they work, think, collaborate, and who they are.

The result of his work, Egonomics: What makes ego our greatest asset (or most expensive liability), is published by Simon & Schuster. Steve has invested more than a decade into the topic and trying to reinvent the way people work. His previous work has been published in 18 languages and 40 countries.

Smith's writing, speaking and business ideas have received acclaim from Tom Peters, Ram Charan, Marshall Goldsmith, Harvard Business School, Thunderbird, and embraced by such client organizations as Hilton, Disney, Baptist Health Care, Hard Rock Cafe, Cox Communications, American Express, and State Farm. With degrees in management, psychology and expertise in team collaboration and leadership, Microsoft Live Meeting featured Smith for two years as top leadership faculty.

Friday Keynote Address: Jason Corsello, Analyst, Knowledge Infusion & the Center of Excellence

Jason Corsello is Vice President of the Knowledge Infusion Center of Excellence. His expertise is in enterprise software and service delivery strategies. Jason comes to Knowledge Infusion as a recognized leader in innovative technologies and Human Capital research and analysis.

Corsello was previously a research director at Yankee Group, leading the company's Human Capital Management and Talent Management advisory and consulting services. Prior to joining Yankee Group, Corsello was the director of marketing at Commendo Software, a leading virtual infrastructure software company. Corsello has worked with leading Fortune 1000 companies, such as Dell, Network Appliance and Microsoft.

Jason is an active participant in the HCM community, the author of the award-winning Human Capitalist Blog, and a frequent presenter and expert panelist at industry events. He is a board member of the Human Capital Institute's Strategic Performance System Thought Leader Panel.

The complete LINK 2008 conference program has been finalized. The following program details the Breakout Sessions offered:

Thursday, 10:30AM - 12:00PM

Breakout Session I-A: Employment Branding: Candidates as Critics
Employment branding, a hot topic in HR circles, and "Employer of Choice" the coveted title. How does your organization tackle this subject? Do you have a strategy to measure corporate perception among not only your current staff but your PROSPECTIVE employees?

This session covers:

• The hiring process - at the balance between scientific selection and the human experience - and provides answers on how to successfully incorporate both.
• Some of the new and captivating ways to reach your target candidates, ways to measure the candidate's experience, and understand their perception of the process.
• Real examples from some of the top places to work who attract the best candidates for the job by ensuring the hiring process makes the right impression.

Back to the top

Breakout Session I-B: Amp Up the Value of Your Assessment Program: Post-hire Practices
You’re using assessments to identify candidates with the most potential, but do you know enough about your current employees’ performance potential? Or have you recently measured specific skills or knowledge? Have you identified employees’ strengths in order to align their careers for success?

This session will take you beyond assessment for selection and review the many ways leading employers are using assessments and skills certifications in the post-hire world - to drive sales, improve knowledge and build overall bench strength.

Breakout Session I-C: Finding Candidates Who Stick Around: Solving the Turnover Puzzle
Hiring "the best" candidate is what everyone wants, but if they don't stay on the job, then what?

This session will look at:

• Recent advances made in determining a candidate's likelihood of staying on the job.
• Which traits and characteristics are important, and ways to identify and measure them.
• How organizations have significantly improved employee retention by adjusting their candidate evaluation, saving them time, money and energy.

Thursday, 1:30PM - 3:00PM

Breakout Session II-A: Insightful Interviews: Key Ingredients for Success
Are you using the very best in interviewing technology and methods in your organization? An effective interview process is one that is consistent, objective and structured. Leveraging on-line techniques, linking interview content to job-related competencies, and using past behavior as a predictor of future performance can take the process to a higher level of effectiveness.

In this case-study driven session we will see how some of the largest employers are implementing interview processes that ensure:

• Effective use of leading edge technology
• Strong links to critical job competencies
• Compatibility with and logical extension of other assessment methods
• Enhanced consistency and fairness
• Accurate and easy to use rating methods
• The insight to uncover the best qualified candidates

Back to the top

Breakout Session II-B: Hiring Top Notch Contact Center Agents: Getting Quality AND Quantity
Who’s your organization's key face to the customer? Chances are – contact center agents play a large role. But are you able to hire and keep agents who provide great service and customer satisfaction? Can you find enough candidates who are not only attentive to customer needs, but have the technical skills to accurately maneuver through application screens and resolve problems quickly? Finding the right people requires a thorough evaluation, yet because it is a position that typically has high turnover, you must act quickly to keep the seats full.

In this session you will learn from organizations with top-rated customer satisfaction who have mastered how to hire contact center agents - in both quantity and quality. They will share with you:

• Actionable ideas for incorporating technology to speed the hiring process
• Best practices to improve contact center metrics such as customer service ratings, average handle time, quality assurance, cross-selling, and 90-day post-hire retention.

Breakout Session II-C: Inside Out - Up and Down: Adopting Assessments for All Jobs, at All Levels
Are you using assessments to hire for only one job-type? Have you projected what the impact would be to the organization’s overall business results if you applied the same hiring scrutiny to all positions at all levels?

In this session you will learn from other talent management leaders who have effectively educated their constituents on the value of scientific hiring practices. Discover how to:

• Gain buy-in from the organization’s business units
• Learn various models for applying consistent assessment and interviewing practices across all jobs types, from entry level to upper management
• How to measure the resulting improvements and show real business outcomes

Back to the top

Thursday, 3:30PM - 5:00PM

Breakout Session III-A: Where in the World: Going Global with your Assessments
As preferences and taste buds vary between cultures, Coca Cola blends its drinks to taste differently from country to country. Similarly, value systems, business practices and emotions range greatly from country to country and when making decisions to expand your employment assessment programs beyond North American boarders, one size surely does not fit all. In this session, you will hear some case examples and considerations from PreVisor international clients and business executives.

This session will cover:

• A holistic view of employment assessments applied to the Full Talent Management Lifecycle with facts & figures from Australian case studies.
• A focused view on "Graduate Recruitment" from the United Kingdom supported by specific assessment metrics for the graduate market.
• Skill tests and competency assessment case studies from the Philippines.

Breakout Session III-B: Culture Fit: Need to Have or Nice to Have? Separating Fact from Fiction
Have you ever hired the one candidate that has the right experience, solid qualifications and relevant work history, but three months later you find their style, approach or behavior are inconsistent with the values of your organization? While skills and experience are critical, research increasingly points to organizational fit as a key differentiator in who will contribute faster, perform better and stay longer. So how do you balance the importance of each in your evaluation?

In this session we will explore the significance of culture fit, how to identify the right match and the new techniques and tools available for assessing candidates. See how other organizations have effectively aligned measurement for culture fit, skills and experience to ensure the candidate is truly the right match.

Friday, 10:30AM - 12:00PM

Breakout Session IV-A:Talent Measurement: Quantifying the Return on Your People Investment (RPI)
Organizations implement assessment programs for many reasons:

• To realize efficiencies in their recruitment and selection processes
• Improve Quality of Hire
• And most importantly - drive business results

A critical requirement for success is that these objectives be defined and articulated in advance so that they can guide assessment program design.

In this session, you will hear from leading employers about how they translated business needs and objectives into requirements for the design, implementation, and evaluation of their assessment programs, and how this allowed them to demonstrate the program’s ROI.

Breakout Session IV-B: Catch'em While You Can: Speed Hiring
Do you feel your candidate pool is shrinking? Or that you face heavy competition for talent in this IM, FaceBook, YouTube world? For many reasons, it is becoming increasingly critical to process candidates quickly - but also effectively.

This fast-paced session will teach:

• Techniques many large employers are using to rapidly screen, assess, interview and hire candidates successfully
• Strategies for one-day hiring events
• Technologies and tools for speeding the evaluation process
• Valuable tips for aligning your internal processes and organization to make one-day hiring decisions possible

Optional Q&A Sessions to be Scheduled

Meet with an I-O
Do you have questions for PreVisor’s team of industrial-organizational experts? Sign up to schedule some time during conference breaks to get answers for things like: ‘How often do you need to redo a job analysis?’ Or ‘How do I maintain validity over time?’ Check the box on the Registration form to sign up.

International Focus
Taking your assessment programs overseas? Sign up to speak with PreVisor’s international business development experts to talk about the special challenges and solutions for global implementations. Check the box on the Registration form to indicate interest.

Back to the top